China sending conflicting signals about new air defence zone

Beijing: China has responded to international defiance of its new air defence zone in the East China Sea by deploying fighter jets to the area while simultaneously seeming to back down from earlier threats of military retaliation.

US Vice-President Joe Biden begins a week-long visit to Japan, China and South Korea on Sunday to defuse the diplomatic and territorial stoush. China said it had sent fighters and early-warning aircraft on a ''routine patrol'' of the zone. This was just hours after Japan and South Korea sent military aircraft through the airspace on Thursday without informing Beijing. And on Tuesday Washington sent two unarmed B-52 bombers into the airspace.

On patrol: China said its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, left Qingdao and passed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday on a training mission in the South China Sea. Photo: Reuters

Air force spokesman Shen Jinke described the Chinese flights as ''a defensive measure and in line with international common practices'', and that the air force would stay on high alert to protect the country's airspace.

There have been conflicting signals from China about how it intends to enforce the zone, which overlaps territorial claims by Japan and South Korea, including the islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

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China seemed to be retreating from its original harsh rhetoric. When it announced the zone last Saturday, it said aircraft entering the airspace must file flight plans in advance or face the possibility of military intervention.

But a foreign ministry spokesman said China would decide on a case-by-case basis how strongly to respond to those who break its rules. And in a further ''clarification'', the People's Liberation Army said on Thursday that the new air zone was ''not a territorial airspace'' and did not mean that China would take immediate military action against aircraft that entered the zone.

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The conflicting signals from Beijing highlight the challenge the leadership faces as it tries to contain a co-ordinated international protest to its unilateral decision to establish the zone, while not appearing weak in front of an increasingly nationalist and anti-Japanese populace.

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The state-run Global Times, which often strikes a nationalist tone in its editorials, identified Japan as the prime target of China's air defence zone, while appearing to soften its stance against the US and Australia.

''Maybe an imminent conflict will be waged between China and Japan,'' it said in an editorial in its English edition on Friday. ''As a staunch supporter of Tokyo, Washington is expected to refrain from confronting Beijing directly in the East China Sea, at least for now.

''If the US does not go too far, we will not target it in safeguarding our air defence zone.''

And while noting that Canberra had rebuked Beijing over the air defence zone, it pointed out it had only done so to please its allies in Washington and Tokyo.

''Australia, having no real conflict with China now, can be ignored at the moment,'' it said.